


'cause I love to speak sweetly to you

by acetheticallyy (patrickcorbins)



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domesticity, Established Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 08:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17505041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrickcorbins/pseuds/acetheticallyy
Summary: It actually gets to a point where the whole thing is about to drive him crazy. He doesn’t want it to drive him crazy, doesn’t particularly think it matters in any case whatsoever, but it gets there just the same. So Eugene tries one morning. Tries not to say it, that is.





	'cause I love to speak sweetly to you

**Author's Note:**

> hello my loves! I'm back already, even though it hasn't even been a month. anyways a couple things before we kick it:
> 
> 1\. title (and inspiration) from "say it first" by darwin deez  
> 2\. the ocd is kind of only implied like it can be inferred that eugene probably has an issue there but there's nothing explicitly stated about it and it is my opinion as someone with ocd that it shouldn't be likely to trigger anything, however I do suggest proceeding with caution  
> 3\. as always, this is based solely upon the actors' portrayals in the hbo miniseries 'the pacific' and is not meant to cause any disrespect towards the real men whatsoever  
> 4\. enjoy!

Sometimes it was difficult. Well, maybe not _difficult_. Falling in love with Merriell Shelton was perhaps the easiest thing Eugene had ever done, believe it or not. It might be more accurate to say that it was frustrating. Not always, just mostly—just _recently_. And it wasn’t an overpowering frustration, but more of a small thing that settled down somewhere in the corner of his mind and spoke up every now and again to let him know what was what. It wasn’t mean, or angry, it just Was.

It said things like, “isn’t it weird how he never says ‘I love you’ first?” and Eugene would simply brush it off, or at least he would try to. That was just Merriell’s way, usually. He wasn’t a very touchy-feely man in general, and Eugene knew that and it was fine. But it still maybe bothered him, just a tad, just enough for that stupid little voice to speak up in his head every now and again, causing his brow to furrow as he tried to dismiss it.

It’s usually pretty easy. Merriell may not like to talk about the way he feels, or admit that he has any feelings at all for that matter, but he does show it in other ways. Like when he comes home to see Eugene slumped over his ecology textbook in the kitchen and gently nudges him awake and leads him to bed so he doesn’t wake up with a stiff neck. Or when Eugene has a big test coming up and he’s practically glued to his flashcards and Merriell shoves him into the living room, free of distractions, and gets dinner started in the kitchen—something warm, something comforting, something that usually never fails to make him _relax_ and feel like he could take on any question his professors threw at him. Or, on certain days that are deemed special for reasons only identifiable to him, he comes home with some variety of flowers and a wide smile that doesn’t seem to leave his face for the rest of the night. Eugene’s tried before to pinpoint what exactly causes that kind of behavior, just so he could be in on it, but he’s never quite figured it out and he’s pretty sure the not knowing makes it all the better.

That’s not to say that gestures like that are all Merriell is good for, of course. He hardly lets Eugene get out of bed for class in the morning without sleepily reaching out for a morning kiss and offering up a good luck for the day ahead. He sits as close to Eugene as possible whenever they’re lazing around the house, lets Eugene tuck up under his arm and cards his hands gently through Eugene’s hair. On weekends, he even wakes up early enough to “help” Eugene with breakfast by resting his chin on Eugene’s shoulder and humming softly while he manages to stir a spoon around in a mixing bowl.

Merriell is a big softy, really. He leaves notes on the fridge for when Eugene gets home before he does and meets Eugene on his lunch break whenever he can and has a rather high propensity for grabbing Eugene by the waist and spinning him around the room for not much of a reason at all except for the fact that he can. Their friends have gotten on his ass more than enough times about the “gooey eyes” he seems to make any time Eugene does anything including, but no limited to: reading his textbook out loud under his breath at the dinner table, singing instructions to himself as he moves around the house, and breathing. He just never says “I love you” first. It doesn’t bother Eugene, really, except for when it does, even though he knows it shouldn’t.

It’s not even that he doesn’t say “I love you” ever, period; he does, a lot, and Eugene knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he means it. He just doesn’t say it first. And that’s okay! Really, Eugene gets it—actions speak louder than words, and all. It would just be nice, he thinks.

It actually gets to a point where the whole thing is about to drive him crazy. He doesn’t _want_ it to drive him crazy, doesn’t particularly think it matters in any case whatsoever, but it gets there just the same. It goes around and around in his head in circles to the point where he can’t focus on anything else, sometimes, and every time he says “I love you” now, the voice in his head says “you idiot, how do you ever expect him to say it first if you can’t keep the stupid words in your mouth for longer than five minutes.”

So Eugene tries one morning. Tries not to say it, that is.

He wakes up in the morning and doesn’t immediately let the words roll off his tongue at the sight of Merriell blinking up at him with a slow smile as he rouses and tries to keep the sun out of his eyes. He hands Merriell a cup of coffee when he finally pads into the kitchen twenty minutes later and presses his lips tightly together to keep from saying it when Merriell curls his hands around the mug and drops a kiss onto the ball of his shoulder. When Merriell says “hey, hold on a minute,” to stop Eugene from leaving just yet and tugs him closer to smooth the hair away from his face, it makes his heart hurt, but he keeps his mouth shut.

“Can’t expect the undergrads to take you seriously if you have your hair sticking up in every direction,” Merriell says. His words are still a little thick with sleep and his eyes are still a little blurry with the early morning and Eugene wants to say it so, _so_ badly. His mouth opens on an inhale, ready to let the words out before he can stop himself. He manages to get his brain back online in time to keep from ruining everything, but not without choking a little for abruptly cutting off the natural exhale that would accompany the words.

Merriell quirks an eyebrow at him, but Eugene smiles through it and says “thanks,” offering up a kiss as compensation where the words “I love you” would usually go.

He can’t make it more than two steps to the front door before Merriell wraps a hand gently around his wrist. “Are you okay?” he asks. Eugene feels like there’s a ten-pound kettlebell sitting in his throat, just behind the epiglottis. He can’t swallow, and the thought of even _trying_ to get any words out makes it hurt.

It shouldn’t be this hard. He isn’t sure why it _is_ this hard. It is perhaps some sort of combination of the fact that keeping his feelings so close to his chest isn’t something he’s used to—he’s never had to keep anything hidden from anyone, he’s never wanted to, and the fact that he’s doing it now is sure to give him some sort of emotional hernia—and the fact that, once he says something, he’s sure Merriell will think it’s something he needs to _change_. And sure, yeah, maybe this whole thing is happening because Eugene _does_ want that, on some level, but he doesn’t want him to think it’s his fault.

It won’t come out right, and he’ll think he has to parade around in circles to fix it and Eugene has never _wanted_ Merriell to change for anything, not even when they first met and he told Eugene to call him Snafu and almost set the dorm room kitchen on fire. He’s always loved Merriell just the way he is and he isn’t sure _why_ he’s so caught up in this right now when he already knows how little it all matters—because they love each other and he can’t see that changing any time soon and _that_ is what matters—but his chest is still tight and he’s liable to cry within the next ten minutes and Merriell is staring at him with a steadily growing concern that says he’s probably considering calling an ambulance if Eugene doesn’t answer him soon.

He clears his throat; the imaginary obstruction there dissipates just a little, just enough. “I’m fine,” he says, and by some miracle he manages to not sound like he’s being strangled.

Merriell knows him better than that. “You sure about that? You’ve been actin’ weird all morning, Gene.” His chest aches. Merriell had noticed? Aside from the weird near-choking mishap?

“Did I do something?” Merriell continues. “Thought everything was fine.”

Eugene breaks. “No,” he says, “you didn’t do anything. Nothing’s your fault.” This, at least, he can be clear on. The rest comes in kind of a jumbled-up mess, like one of those puzzles in the Sunday newspaper that give the punchline to a joke and expect you to fill in the rest by yourself. “I just…sometimes I get these stupid ideas in my head and I can’t get them to leave, even though I know they’re wrong and don’t make any sense, but I start thinking about it and then I can’t _stop_ and it starts to bother me, even when it shouldn’t, and the other day I had this thought like ‘hey isn’t that weird?’ even though it wasn’t, and now I’m driving myself half-crazy over it.”

It isn’t lost on him that he’s managed to leave out exactly what it is that he’s driving himself half-crazy over. It isn’t lost on Merriell either. “Driving yourself crazy over what, Eugene?” There’s no exasperation in his voice, only a gentle prodding. He’s been around Eugene long enough to know how he gets when he works himself up over something stupid.

“It’s nothing, I promise. It’s fine.” Eugene knows this answer isn’t going to get him anywhere, but he figures it’s worth a shot. He’s proven right when Merriell stares at him with a look on his face that says, _“I know you’re upset so I’m not going to say this out loud, but you and I both know that that’s bullshit.”_

Eugene sighs. “I just…the other day I was sitting around, and I just started _thinking_ , you know, about…about how you never really ever say ‘I love you’ first.” Before any argument can ensue, he rushes to explain. “And I know that you _do_ love me, and I know that it’s _stupid_ of me to keep thinking about it, but I couldn’t _stop_ thinking about it after a while, and now here I am, standing here looking like an asshole in the middle of our kitchen.”

Merriell laughs. Eugene isn’t sure what reaction he had expected, but it’s safe to say that laughter was probably the furthest thing on his mind. Arguing, yes. Betrayal, maybe. But laughing? Laughing didn’t even register as a possibility.

“Eugene I’ve said it first a million and one times before,” he says. “It’s just that once we started dating you never waited long enough to let me say _anything_ first—you always beat me to it.”

And, well…he’s right. Back when they were just friends that shared a dorm kitchen and an honors English course in the basement of Old Chemistry, Merriell said “I love you” first all the time—when they were laughing about what a joke their prereqs were as they sat in the overcrowded student union as they tried and failed to focus on their homework; when Eugene left for Alabama at the end of the semester; after every single phone call they made to each other during break. Before they were officially a couple, Merriell had said it first all the time, and Eugene’s heart had just about burst out of his chest every time.

And Eugene _had_ considered the possibly that he had just always said it too quickly for Merriell to _ever_ be able to say it first; that was the whole reason the morning was the way that it was. But that still didn’t explain—

“I know what you’re thinking, Gene, but can you blame me? I usually can’t get you to _stop_ saying it, when they weren’t the first words out of your mouth this morning I thought you were mad at me for something. Figured I’d wait it out and you’d tell me eventually, but then you started acting all cagey.”

Right. It was routine, at that point, however little he thought about it as such. It would only make sense that Merriell would assume that something was wrong when that routine was disrupted. It’s what _Eugene_ likely would have done, if under the same circumstances. He is so stupid.

“I am so stupid.”

Merriell laughs again. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “But I love you anyway.”

Just like it always has, Eugene’s heart threatens to burst right out of his chest. “Love you, too.”

They stand there for a while, hovering near the doorway to their apartment, just looking at each other. Eugene, smiling sheepishly, willing the embarrassment at being so ridiculous to fade away. Merriell, amusement sparkling clearly in his eyes, nothing but fond affection written on his face. The clock ticks in the background, and everything not immediately existing in their little bubble is all but forgotten until Merriell flicks his gaze absently towards the sound and notices the time.

“Jesus,” he says under his breath, “you’re gonna be late, Eugene. It’s seven forty-five already.”

Eugene kind of has half a mind to say to hell with the lab full of nineteen-year-old biology pre-majors he has waiting for him at the university, but he knows missing a day without telling the lab coordinator is likely to get him on some kind of probation and he’s already been in grad school long enough. There’s no way in hell he’s jeopardizing his master’s degree because he wanted to act like a jackass this morning and spent too long trying to make up for it. There would be time for that later.

Still, it’s a hard decision to make. Merriell seems to notice the hesitation on his face and grabs his keys off the hook on the wall to press them into his palm. “You can make it up to me later, if you think you have to, but right now you gotta go. Good luck, cher.”

“Thanks, I’ll need it,” he responds. “Love you.”

“All you’ve gone through this morning, and you still can’t stop yourself,” Merriell jokes. “Love you, too, now get outta here.”

Eugene thinks about it most of the day. None of his labs seem to mind the fact that it makes him forget to give them a quiz, and the professor overlooking his research project is out of town for a conference so no one’s there to see when he accidentally spills a vial of hydrochloric acid because he wasn’t paying attention and dances around in a panic trying to find the sodium bicarbonate to neutralize it.

The morning’s events are still embarrassing, and he has to will himself not to blush on more than one occasion when he remembers how stupid he sounded rambling on about everything, but it makes him feel warm and content just the same.

And the next morning when he wakes up to the sun streaming through the windows and Merriell’s lazy, half-asleep smile stretching across his face, he opens his mouth to say it but is beaten to it before he can even get enough air in his lungs to make a noise.

“Love ya, Gene.”

It isn’t necessary, he knows that—it never _was_ necessary, he knows that, too. But it sure is nice.


End file.
